CABLE BAY ROAD.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXVIII, Issue 243, 21 November 1894, Page 3

CABLE BAY ROAD.

To the Editok op the 'Evening MAir Seb,— Whilst sympathising with those wl have been bereaved through the recent tra accident on the Cable Bay road, I may 1 allowed to express my regret that one of tl witnesses at. the inquest should have inadi no doubt from faulty recollection, incorre< statements regarding the condition of tb road. The statements to which I take ej ception are (1) That the road had bee freshly, metalled; and (2) That there was to much crown on it. As to the first, I ma say that it is fully six months since I gravelle that portion of tho road where the acciden occurred. With regard to the second, I neei only say that any one viewing it will bear m onfc when I state that there is scarcely an; crown — certainly not too much — the si: inches of river gravel haying been wori down by heavy traffic during the past si: months. < I can only conclude that in expressing th opinion that the road should be improved a the spot in question the jury bad no persona knowledge of its actual condition. Within half an-hour of the accident, somi half-dozen traps (two and four-wheel) includ ing a three-in-hand, driven by the well-knowi . « whip ' Mr Harling, passed over the roat without the slightest difficulty. With proper care and reliable horses, then need be no feat of a similar accident occur ring.— l am, etc., . Wm. Eayner. A small steamboat has reached Thief Bivei Palls in the North-west Minnesota, after b perilous passage down the Thief Eiver of 12C miles, skirting the Great Bed Lake and the Indian .Reserve. Fully half the journey was accomplished between walls of fire. The flames jumped the river and cut a swath oi dense forest 60 miles wide. The steamer was only able to go a few miles at a time, aftei which everyone on board had to disembark and stand on the sand bars until the fire and the heat had abated somewhat. Several times the boat caught fire, and the names were only quenched with difficulty. The river was so heated that the surface was covered with dead fish. Bears, deer, and other species of large game fled in confusion, and many small canoe parties of Indians were Been going down the river as best they could. It is thought that some of them must have perished. The fire is believed to have been caused by a man who failed to secure the control of some Government hay land, and ignited the brushwood out of spite. The Poetic Advantages of English.— Th® poetry of Mr Alfred Austin is the subject o f a series of essays now appearing in the Berlin Die Nation. The writer, Professor C. Abel, the well-known Orientalist and philologist, makes some interesting remarks on the superiority of the English language. "The English poet," he says, "is in one important respect placed in a much more advantageous position than the German. Partly by reason of the larger number of roots which the primitive Low-German language possesses, compared with our artificial and literary HighGerman tongue, and partly by reason of the admission, in the formation of the English language, of French, Latin, Greek, and Celtic words, English is richer in simple non-composite words than German. At the same time it contains a greater number of synonyms and a more ample and yet more exact shading of conceptions •which are thus (so to speak) prepared by the language and placed at the disposal of the poet ; and, finally, it boasts a more abundant and easy rhyme. A still further advantage exists in the fact that words of Germanic origin have, in English, a charm for the ear and a certain glow for the mind which, in the hands of a truly capable artist, can be woven into a web in which strength and delicacy, intellect and feeling, combine to produce a splendid effect. What can be done with such advantages as these is shown by Alfred Austin in a rare and remarkable manner, who, in tho expression of pathos, humour, or imaginative intellectual conceptions, uses the English language as an inexhaustible keyboard with the hand of a master^" The Sea as an Invader.— The flat marshes of Pevensey have gained half a mile since the days of Edward 11., when the sea almost washed the walls of the castle that now stands high and dry inland. The same thing has happened on the Roniney flats, where the ancient castle of Lymyne has receded a mile or more. Such spots as these look as (hough the next spring would add their grassy meadows ; to the lost ground of sea bottom. But on the rocky parts of the Antrim coast, -we have the sea slowly ■working its way inland, despite the rock fortifications and stony entrenchment that look so resistless. Under the waves lie tracts of bog-land that once upon a time must have stood well in-shore ; and Dunluce bears witness to the ravages that have taken place within a few centuries — a few ticks of the clock as geologists count time. The sea, ever washing and tearing at its foundations, one day broke down a considerable part of the castle, and several persons were Killed by the catastrophe. This was in the days when Dunlace was held by other tenants than the birds. Then a home and a stronghold, now but a memento of past joy and glory. Another marked example of the insecurity of rock defences where the sea is the invader occurs at Filey, on the Yorkshire coast. Only twenty years ago there was a pathway running round the ancient church of St. Hilda, which is built on the solid rock ; now this is so broken away on the seaward side that it is impassable. Another twenty years may see the church undermined. The birds, however, take no heed of such catastrophes. What does it matter to creatures with wings if thundering tons of rock come crashing down? They are up and away in safety as quick as thought. Unless, indeed misfortune chance to come in spring time, when the young are tender and helpless in the nest; then, like the storks in the burning of Delft, even timid birds will stay and "face death rather than forsake their offspring. — A rgosy. Says an American paper: "The future French Anarchist who commits a capital crime will be taken to a dungeon as soon as he has been arrested, and confined there until the hour of his death, except during the short time of his appearance in the trial room. He will be designated by a number instead of a name. No visitors will be permitted to see him, his photograph will not be sold, no newspaper in France will Eublish a report of bia trial or allude to im in any way, Under penalty of a heavy fine and imprisonment of the owner of the Eaper, and the Anarchist will, in the end, be dried in an unknown grave. No reporters will witness bis death, and, worst of all, he wi 1 be condemned, not by a jury of his peers, who might have Anarchistic sympathies, or who could be frightened by threats into giving a merciful verdict, but by judges, who nave the good of the state at heart. No delegation of flower-bearing women, I speech-making men, photograph 'fiends, or sympathisers will make the Anarchist's family celebrated or his grave famous. Even the most radical Ked in Paris, as he looks the matter over seriously, will wonder what there is in the Anarchist scheme after all. -Under the present programme the Anarchist, from the moment of his arrest, will be dead to the world, and will be carried to a swift and secret annihilation, in which there is no possible element of fame or publicity. The effect of such treatment upon the Chicago Anarchists, seven of whom are now conducting large and prosperous saloons as the result of the fame aroused by their trials for bomb-throwing, would be beneficial tb the citizens of Chicago. Although Queen Victoria rules over an empire that embraces possessions in every part of the world ahe lias never travelled outside Europe, and even there her trips have been short ones to France, Holland, Germany and Italy only.